


C'est Magnifique

by alleyesonthehindenburg



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Multi, Queer Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 13:44:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17489132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alleyesonthehindenburg/pseuds/alleyesonthehindenburg
Summary: The look Hawk gives her at that is knowing, and BJ feels like he’s missing something here. The feeling is compounded later that evening, when he comes downstairs from putting Erin to sleep and finds Hawk and Margaret huddled together on Hawk’s temporary bed, speaking in hushed tones. He says his goodnights, smiling faintly at the kiss Hawk blows him over Margaret’s head, and trudges upstairs. The California king feels awfully empty without Hawkeye. Peg feels the same, he can tell; she sprawls out on the bed like she’s trying to make up for his absence.





	C'est Magnifique

**Author's Note:**

  * For [justalittlegreen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justalittlegreen/gifts).



The last thing BJ expects at 7 on a Saturday morning is to be shaken awake by tiny hands, and to find Erin’s big brown eyes inches from his. He blinks, brain taking a minute to catch up, and then jackknifes up.

Peg and Hawk are curled up around each other, still fast asleep, with the bedsheets – thank god – covering them both from the shoulders down. He grabs at the sheets, making sure his lap is covered before he turns to face Erin. She’s got one hand clapped over her mouth, shoulders shaking as she giggles. “Oh-kay,” BJ whispers, reaching over to grasp blindly at the floor until he finds his boxers, “how’d you get in here?”

Erin holds up a toothpick, grinning widely. “Uncle Max taught me how to open doors,” she whispers back, and BJ mentally curses Klinger as he wriggles into his boxers underneath the sheets.

As soon as they’re on, he rolls out of bed, hauls Erin up onto his shoulder and hightails it out of the bedroom before her giddy laughter can wake his partners. He sets her down in the hallway, closing the door carefully behind him, and snatches the toothpick out of Erin’s hand. “Hey,” he says, holding it back when she tries to grab it, “Erin, you can never ever ever open Mommy and Daddy and Hawki’s door when it’s locked, okay?”

“But Uncle Max – “

“Never ever, Erin.”

“Fine,” she says, and BJ hands the toothpick back. Pouting, she mutters, “Hawki said it was a good thing to know.”

“I don’t think this is exactly what Hawki had in mind.” In fact, he _knows_ this isn’t what Hawkeye had in mind – the man is going to bitch like nobody’s business when he wakes up and finds BJ isn’t there to make good on his promise from the night before. “Go put the TV on and I’ll get started on pancakes – “

“But Daddy, there’s someone at the door.”

“What?”

“There’s someone at the door! That’s why I went to wake you up.”

He stares at her for a moment, brain still muzzy from sleep, and then groans. Just his luck. “Who the hell is up at 7 in the morning on a Saturday,” he mumbles, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Okay, sweetie, why don’t you go watch TV and I’ll see who it is, okay?”

“ _Yeah_ ,” she says, like it’s obvious, and skips away down the stairs.

BJ groans, running a hand over his face. His cheeks are rough with stubble, moustache untrimmed, and for a moment he entertains the notion of returning to his warm bed and warmer partners. Erin knows not to open the door without an adult present. But it could be something important, and evidently there’s nothing to stop Erin from barging into the master bedroom at any time, so BJ grabs his bathrobe out of the ensuite and trudges down the stairs.

It’s too early for the mail, and BJ knows it’s probably nothing, probably Mrs. O’Neill again, yelling about Waggles digging holes in her yard even though Waggles has never dug a hole in his life, but.

(Sometimes, when they first got back from Korea, BJ had nightmares about opening the door to a Western Union courier, being handed a telegram that says ‘The Secretary of War regrets to inform you that Captain B.F. Pierce, 19905607, died during enemy shelling of Crabapple Cove, Maine.’ He hasn’t had one of those nightmares in a long time – there’s no call for it, not with Hawkeye safe and sound in San Francisco – but he can’t help the anxiety that gnaws at his chest sometimes.)

“Get the door, Daddy,” Erin yells. She’s in the living room, and BJ can hear the television – brand new, a gift from Peg’s mother and stepfather – blaring the theme song to one of those animated shorts.

It’s a bit scandalous, maybe, opening the door in just a bathrobe and boxers, but the hour is decidedly unreasonable and BJ doesn’t have a hint of remorse. He half hopes it _is_ Mrs. O’Neill, just to see her bluster and sputter. After all, he still hasn’t forgiven her for insulting Peg’s new dress the other day, and the thought brings back such a wave of indignant outrage that he isn’t paying much attention as he opens the door, and is promptly bowled over. He staggers back a few steps before he manages to regain his balance. Arms are wrapped vice-tight around him, but their owner pulls back a second later, and BJ can’t hold back a surprised laugh.

“Good to see you too, Hunnicutt,” Margaret says, grinning ear to ear, and then Erin comes racing in with an _Auntie Margaret!_ and latches on to her legs. “Hey, and how’s my favourite girl?”

“Did you bring me a present?”

“Erin,” BJ scolds, but Margaret just laughs.

“Maybe. I’m too hungry to remember.”

“I’ll go make cereal,” Erin announces, detaching herself from Margaret’s legs and disappearing as quickly as she’d come. BJ makes a mental note to sit her down and have a talk about manners.

“I’m sorry about her,” he says, but when he turns back Margaret’s got a brilliant smile on her face, and he can’t help but match it. God, it’s good to see her.

“She’s a darling, she just takes after her uncle a bit,” she says. “Hey, I’m sorry to drop in out of the blue like this, but I’m heading up to Portland to visit a friend and thought I’d stop by.”

“Hey, you’re always welcome.” He means it too, even if it is 7 in the morning. “How long will you be staying?”

“Just the night, if that’s okay with you.”

“Of course.” BJ goes to grab her bags, and then pauses. _Shit_. “I’ll have to kick Hawkeye out of the guest room,” he says, feigning cheerfulness, “but he can handle a night on the couch.”

She gives him a _look_ at that, and BJ’s never had a big sister, but he thinks this must be what it feels like sometimes. (There’s a part of him that hopes Erin will someday have cause to learn from the best.) He almost thinks Margaret’s gonna say something, but there’s a crash from the kitchen – Erin knocking over the boxes of cereal, no doubt – and BJ groans. “Let me take care of that,” Margaret says. “I’d like to see what I’m supposed to be eating anyway.”

He hesitates. It’s poor manners, asking a guest to help clean up, but it’s not like Margaret is just any guest. “I’ll wake up Peg and Hawk,” he says, before he can overthink whether Peg and Hawk sounds like Peg-and-Hawk or Peg, and Hawk.

“Oh, you really don’t have to, you should let them sleep. I didn’t realise how early it would be when I got here.”

“I’ll be read the riot act later if I don’t,” he assures her.

He takes the steps two at a time, but his pace slows as he nears the top. This is his least favourite part of hosting visitors: having to pretend that Hawk’s just a guest, that it’s not just as much his home as the rest of theirs. But there’s no use dwelling on it, and he puts on a smile as he strolls into the master bedroom.

“Wakey wakey,” he says, perching in the edge of the bed. “Time to rise and shine.”

Peg groans, pressing her face into the pillow and muttering “go ‘way.” Hawkeye’s too deeply asleep to even respond.

BJ sighs, reaching over to shake Hawk’s shoulder. “Up and at ‘em,” he says to the both of them. “Before Margaret gets up here and sees you in bed together.”

“I’m Margaret.”

“No, you’re Peggy.”

“Not to my enemies.”

“What enemies?”

“Mrs. O’Neill,” Peg growls, and Hawkeye snickers into his pillow.

“All right, up.” BJ tugs the covers down, ignoring the groans from both of his partners. “Hawk, I told her that I’d boot you out of the guest room so she can have it for the night.”

“I thought I was promised a thorough ravishing.”

“I thought I was promised a front-row seat,” Peg chimes in.

Hawk sits bolt upright a second later, giggling as he tries to fend off BJ’s attack. “Not – not like that,” he gasps out, smacking BJ’s hands away from his ticklish spots. “I’m up! I’m up. What’s Margaret even doing here, anyway?”

“She said she’s on her way to visit a friend in Portland,” BJ says, clambering off the bed to throw some respectable clothes their way.

Hawk pauses, his shorts tugged halfway up his legs. “Portland?”

“Yeah.”

“Did she say which friend?”

“I didn’t ask.”

Hawk’s practically tripping over himself after that, and he’s bounding down the stairs before Peg even has her bathrobe wrapped over her pyjamas. He’s been corresponding with her a lot, Beej knows. They both have – the whole 4077, in fact – but Hawkeye seems to have a new letter every week.

By the time BJ and Peg make it downstairs, Erin is serving bowls of that awful new Trix cereal, while Margaret and Hawkeye chat animatedly. The rest of the day passes in a blur; they take Margaret out to Stinson Beach to see the house, nearly completed now, and dinner is breakfast part two, Erin helping Hawkeye make the Pierce Specialty. Erin leads the conversation at dinner, bouncing from topic to topic while the adults exchange grins above her head. At one point, her mouth half-full of French toast, Erin asks, “Who are you visiting?”

Margaret smiles, making a point to chew and swallow before she speaks. “A special friend of mine,” she says. “Her name is Lorraine.”

“Is she pretty?”

“Very pretty.”

The look Hawk gives her at that is knowing, and BJ feels like he’s missing something here. The feeling is compounded later that evening, when he comes downstairs from putting Erin to sleep and finds Hawk and Margaret huddled together on Hawk’s temporary bed, speaking in hushed tones. He says his goodnights, smiling faintly at the kiss Hawk blows him over Margaret’s head, and trudges upstairs. The California king feels awfully empty without Hawkeye. Peg feels the same, he can tell; she sprawls out on the bed like she’s trying to make up for his absence.

Margaret sets off early in the morning, leaving behind a teddy bear for Erin and a kiss on the cheek for Hawkeye and BJ. As her car disappears down the road, BJ wraps his arms around Hawk’s waist, enjoying the loud cackle that gets cut off when Peg stands tip-toe for a kiss.

 

The next time Margaret visits, she and Lorraine take the guest bedroom, and Hawkeye stays in the master with the Hunnicutts.


End file.
